Members of the New York City Council will introduce a set of four bills Wednesday afternoon to overhaul the city’s longstanding street vending rules and bring more off-the-books merchants into good standing under the law — keeping them from risking hefty fines, fees and jail time.
The most sweeping change would remove a decades-old cap on the city’s highly coveted and restricted vendor permits and licenses — a measure that has never been proposed before. Vendors and supporters have long sought the reform, and say that the limit forces many vendors to operate illegally.
“We need to have a way to bring people out to the light from the shadows,” said Councilmember Pierina Sanchez, who is sponsoring the bill with Councilmember Amanda Farías, a fellow Bronx Democrat.
Sanchez said the measure is personal for her — her father and grandfather were vendors in the Bronx, and her uncles and cousins have been cleared out by police as unlicensed vendors on Fordham Road, a major street in the borough.
The councilmembers and other advocates said if more vendors are operating legally, customers can feel more secure that they’re being regulated — such as in the case of food vendors, who post their permits and health inspection letter grades.
They said the need for reform is especially urgent given that the number of street vendors — which estimates from a study by the nonprofit Street Vendor Project that was conducted about a decade ago put at about 20,000 — grew during the pandemic and continues to rise as new migrants flock to the city. Most of those vendors are operating without the required permits and licenses, according to the Street Vendor Project.
Brick-and-mortar business owners have long criticized attempts to ease the city’s vending rules, arguing that more vendors and lax laws will lead to more competition, congested sidewalks and dirty conditions — and claim that the existing vending rules aren’t sufficiently enforced.
But vendor advocates said…
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